MAKING IT HAPPEN

I’m pretty sure that this is the coolest typewriter I’ve ever, ever, ever seen.

Last week I finished up the revisions I started *gulp* a year ago on my book.  Revisions I embarked on after receiving a very nicely worded rejection from an agent.

A very nicely worded rejection that totally knocked my feet out from under me.  

A very nicely worded rejection that had me re-writing the whole thing in first person.

And then re-writing the whole thing in third-person.  Again.

I was so deeply shaken by that stupid rejection.

But now I’m here on the other end of it.  On the cusp of planning a release date for my book.  Something I can do with more confidence than I would have ever imagined because I’ve revised, revised, revised.  Some of it was necessary, some of it wasn’t, and all of it served to teach me a whole hell of a lot.  So, thank you, agent lady.  If it weren’t for you, I would have never done that.  Because of you,  I know this thing inside and out.  I’ve taken it apart and put it back together so many times that I could now do it in my sleep.

I really am so grateful.

I was at the library when I finished it.  Well, not really at the library – libraries scare the shiza out of me.  I was sitting outside the library, working at a patio table.  The eerie quiet that permeates the inside of the library oozes outside, too – but at least it’s tempered with the noise chirping birds and cars driving by.  Just quiet enough to work; not so quiet that it feels like a graveyard.

Nobody was there at the moment of completion.  Just me and my trusty MacBook.  We stared at each other awhile.  I finally risked a whisper:

Did we do it? 

My MacBook is the strong, silent type.  He just stared back at me, his fan humming quietly, like a cat’s purr…

You’re going to start hearing more and more about this project I’ve been calling SHRILUGH.  I’m so excited to be nearing the point where I can actually share it with you.  Three years in the making so far.  Other than marriage and parenting, it’s been the best education I’ve had, this journey called writing a novel.

More on SHRILUGH and where I’m going with it next week.

Love,

Myn

p.s. To see a little of what inspires me, visit my SHRILUGH board (and others – there’s a whole slew of ‘em!) on Pinterest.

LUCKY ME! LUCKY YOU! IT’S THE LUCKY 7 MEME!

Okay, so I was kind-of thinking this was the neatest thing evah. The Lucky 7 Meme gets passed around the writerly community, tagging folks and tasking them with posting pretty little excerpts from their WIP’s (‘work-in-progress’ for you non-writerly types). The first time I saw it I became giddy reading little tidbits of what my buddies were working on, and really hoped I’d get tagged. I wanted to play, too!

Then I got tagged. (Thanks, Jennifer L. Oliver! and Jessica O’Neal!)And promptly got stage fright.

Here are the rules. When I was reading them on other folk’s blogs, they seemed like no biggie to me.

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences, or paragraphs, and post them as they’re written.
4. Tag 7 authors, and let them know.

So, I went to page 77. I counted down to line 7. I read through the next 7 paragraphs.

I frowned, gulped, and immediately wanted to cheat.

The rest of the evening was spent combing through the manuscript with my snarky little Writer Troll peering over my shoulder saying, “That’s total crap. You have a prologue – don’t count that page, and check page 78 instead.”

I did. Writer Troll smacked loudly on her cinnamon-flavored gum. “That’s total crap. Maybe just check page 76 and see what you find there.”

I did. Writer Troll chimed in, picking at her chipped manicure. “That’s total crap.”

So I decided to check Chapter 7. It’s the Lucky 7 Meme after all, right? Chapter 7 could sort of count. Writer Troll, trying on my favorite heels without asking: “Total crap.  Can I have these?  They look better on me anyway…”

Page 7? Writer Troll, yawning: “Crap.”

Chapter 42? Don’t have one, but Writer Troll had an opinion on that, too. “If you did have one, it’d be total crap on a shiny silver platter.”

So I turned off the computer and went to bed. “Guess what?” Writer Troll whispered softly as she pulled the blankets up under my chin. “It’ll still be total crap in the morning.”

I woke up to a lovely rainy morning. Writer Troll was snoring loudly in my favorite chair. Drool had crusted in the corner of her mouth and my dog was growling at her from the corner. Somehow the diffused morning light made everything so much clearer. Someone in the room was full of crap. But it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t my manuscript.

It’s Writer Troll. She’s full of crap.

After a hearty breakfast and a cold glass of milk I kicked her mouthy @$$ to the curb.

She’ll be back, of course, but for the moment I’m free of her.

So, here it is. An except from my WIP, SHRILUGH. Page 77, seven lines in, seven paragraphs for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

…Something about Bristol’s appearance caught Rein off guard. He’d not noticed his eye color before now – it had been too dark in the barn on the Fulbert property. But here it was easy to see they were blue. Disturbingly blue.

Rein swallowed hard, turning his eyes away. The variety of eye color in the human world was strange to him, and he found looking at humans, especially those with blue eyes, unnerving. It was…unnatural.

Rein glanced back up at the boy, who happened to look down right at that moment. Seeing that he was awake, and watching them, Bristol nudged Isaac and nodded in Rein’s direction. Rein wondered if Isaac had told the humans he dwelled with the truth about who and what he was.

“It’s just…a gut feeling,” Isaac finally answered the boy, eyeing Rein cautiously as he said it. His response answered Rein’s curiosity; the humans didn’t know, or else he’d have explained what he suspected Rein’s presence meant.

Bristol walked nearer to Rein, crouching over him, eyeing his bruised and bloodied face, oblivious to the fact that the man he examined had to force himself to meet his gaze.

“Isaac, you did this to him?” He looked up over his shoulder at Isaac with a shocked expression on his face.

“I was trying to get him to talk.”

Voila! There it is!

And now I task the following seven writers (ach, if I had my druthers, the list would be MUCH longer than seven…and if you’ve already been tagged – oops, sorry!) to kick their trolls in the arse and post tidbits of their own manuscripts on their blogs! Roll call!

Ginger Calem

Sherry Isaac

Kara Flathouse

Tameri Etherton

Natalie Hartford

Kecia Adams

Jess Witkins

Nervous

Dorothy Parker once said,

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

This statement cracks me up.  I think it would crack any writer up.  Most of us are cracked anyway, so it’s no big deal.

When I first began writing, I had no idea what a soul-lashing, confidence-thrashing, oftentimes sadistic past-time it would become.  Then, somewhere along the way, it became more than a simple pastime.  It became an occupation.  Something I did with the regularity of a part-time job…without the obvious benefit of a part-time job (ka-ching).

Even so, I keep at it.  All of us writers do.  Because as much as a roller-coaster the process can be, and as bitchy as the muse can sometimes get, something about it gets under our skin.  It becomes impossible not to write.  When we stop writing, our interior wells become stagnant.  Eventually that stagnation eeks out of us in the form of grumpy, brooding, disagreeable behavior.

Most of us write because we genuinely love to write.  We spend ungodly amounts of time, butt planted in a chair, hammering out words (half the time telling ourselves that it’s all rubbish, utter crap).  We spend equal amounts of time reading other peoples words, reading about writing, re-writing what we’ve written based on what other people have written about writing.  We’re obsessively in love with what we do.  Sometimes the obsessive outweighs the love; sometimes it’s the other way around.

This makes us – or me, anyway – insanely overprotective of what we’ve written, sometimes seasoned with dashes of debilitating lack of confidence.

I’m nearing the place where I’m ready to have my WIP read by beta-readers.  My dear, sweet friend Emily – who is always one of my biggest cheerleaders – will be reading it, once again.  Bless her heart, she’s read so many versions of this story, she’s probably ready to change her name and head for the woods at the thought of doing it again.  :)  I love her for her willingness.  And I’m hoping to put a couple pairs of fresh eyes on it this time around, too.

But I’m nervous as all get-out.

Where are you at in the process of doing what you love?  I know many of you writerly types get what I’m saying!  And I can’t believe the concept is restricted to the writers in the crowd.  I want to hear about the thing you’re doing right now – the project you’re in the middle of, the dream you’ve been toying with…what’s your process like?  Relate with me, so I can feel better about feeling nervous.  :)

Q&A: Alica McKenna Johnson

I am super-psyched to introduce you Alica McKenna Johnson today.  She’s not new to my blog – you can check out her guest post here – but she’s recently released her novel PHOENIX CHILD, which is super-exciting news, any way you slice it.  This seems like a fabulous time for you to get to know her a little better, don’tchya think?  Check out the little Q&A we had the other day…

ME:  Alica!  Your new book has just been published, which is so very cool.  The day after PHOENIX CHILD was available online, what was the first thing you did when you woke up?

ALICA: Great question!  Nothing too exciting.  I was working, so up at 5:20 AM, opened the computer and logged in.  Then I woke up the first child, checked email, squealed at seeing two more purchased from Smashwords, got kids to bus by 6AM, woke my two personal kids (hubby was also working), woke two more work kids, when they were done in the bathroom woke final two work kids, made breakfast and managed to get them all off to school while obsessively checking Amazon, Smashwords, Facebook, and Twitter.

ME: Holy cow, woman, you are busy!  Six kids, four of which are foster kids (is that the right term?)…it makes my head spin.

Quick, which do you relate most to?  Hamster in a wheel, kangaroo with a pouch full of rowdy joeys, or goddess divine who can breeze through anything life throws at her?

ALICA: It’s actually five kids, did I leave one out?  The term ‘foster’ works, but I’m technically a houseparent  in a group home.  

I like to imagine that I’m a divine goddess, but really I think I’m more a kangaroo desperately trying to keep everything together.  Hey, what happened to my opposable thumbs?  I need those!

ME: Okay, first of all, anybody who’s a houseparent immediately gets rockstar status in my book.  Secondly, opposable thumbs are an absolute necessity.  How else would I drag the offspring around by their ears all day long?  And thirdly, I clearly can’t count, because now I totally see that you listed five kiddos, not six.  Scary thing, isn’t it, to think that I’m responsible for teaching my kids math…

ALICA: Don’t worry, Myndi.  Your kids will help you learn math.  :)

As for rockstar status, I don’t know about that.  Most of the time I’m desperately trying not to lose my temper!  

ME: That’s okay – I’ve heard rockstars have been known to lose their tempers a time or two…

Hey, speaking of homeschooling, you’ve been down that path before, and are looking to start up again.  In the spirit of homeschooling camaraderie, riddle me this: What’s the silliest question you’ve had to fend from non-homeschooling folks?

ALICA: I loved homeschooling, and most of the people we hung out with either home-schooled, or were alternative thinking, so I didn’t get too much flack.  But while we were on vacation in Denver some guy in a shop asked my son some weird question about a quarter – it might have been who was on it, or what the newest state quarter was?  All I remember was thinking he was crazy and a regular school kid wouldn’t know the answer!

My mom used to worry that my son was ‘too smart and active’ to be home-schooled.  And of course, there’s the ‘but what if you don’t know it?’ question.  Umm…I look it up?  I learned a ton homeschooling my kids.

ME: As I’m sure you’re well aware (because I can’t seem to shut my yapper about it), I’m about ready to pop out my fourth child.  You’ve mentioned in passing that you’ve home-birthed more than once.  Again, rockstar status is in order here.  I kind-of dig the idea, but I’ve never been able to get the Hubster on board.  How did you convince your Hunny it was the thing to do?

ALICA: Well, with my first hubby – once I stopped crying, realizing I was unmarried, 19, and pregnant – I said, ‘By the way, you know I’m having this baby at home.’  He wasn’t sold on the idea, but once we went to Bradley Child Birthing Classes, he was good with it.  We felt very secure with the midwife I picked.  Good thing, too, because he almost delivered Logan by himself!

Hubby #2 is as alternative as I am and dislikes hospitals as much as I do, so that one was easy.

I was blessed with a midwife that I trusted, and easy, healthy pregnancies.  I’m so glad I had my babies at home, and have even been invited to attend a few births.  So amazing…and I always hold my breath until the baby cries.

ME: Isn’t that first cry of life the most amazing, relieving thing?

ALICA: It’s amazing.  I don’t think I can describe it.  Just thinking about it fills me with hope and joy.

ME:  How old are your kiddos now, and what’s the one thing that sticks out in your mind that motherhood has taught you?

ALICA: Let’s see…my kiddos are 17 and 12.  What has motherhood taught me?  That being a good parent is more than just how you raise your children, it’s also how much work you’re willing to do to become a better person so you can show your kids how they can be their best.  Does that make sense?

ME: Absolutely!  So much is taught through observation.  I don’t think we can underestimate how much they learn from us when we don’t realize they’re watching.  

Back to this book of yours.  What did it feel like when you got to the place with your manuscript and realized, “THIS IS DONE!”?

ALICA:  At first I was shocked.  I just stared at the computer screen.  Then I jumped for joy and told everyone I could think of.  Then I realized I still had to edit and revise, and then I wanted to cry just a little bit.  Okay, a lot.  But after some moral support and chocolate, I pulled myself together.

ME:  Mmmmm, chocolate.  Favorite kind?

ALICA:  Is there any bad chocolate?  LOL.  I do prefer dark chocolate, and I like quality chocolate.  No cheap stuff for me.

ME:  …can we still be friends if I admit I have a love affair with Hershey’s with almonds?

(silence)

ME: Um….back to PHOENIX CHILD, shall we?  *grins awkwardly and throws Hershey’s wrapper behind sofa*  Give me a fast run-down of what the book’s about.

ALICA:  PHOENIX CHILD is a Young Adult Urban Fantasy.  Sara lives in a group home and is trying to make the best of her life in the system.  Waking up the morning of her fourteenth birthday, she finds her appearance has changed, and she has powers – like bursting into flames – that she doesn’t want.  

Soon she finds a family.  Not only others like her, but an uncle she never knew existed shows up in her life.  Confronted by the evil that killed her parents, Sara has to decide if she will let her fears win, or find the courage to accept her destiny and save her people.

ME: Sounds totally fantastic!  Who do you think would most enjoy PHOENIX CHILD?

ALICA:  I hope I have written a book that will appeal to teens and adults.  I know so many adults who love YA that I didn’t want to focus on just one age group.  

ME:  Where can folks purchase your book?

ALICA:  You can purchase PHOENIX CHILD at Amazon and Smashwords.  Both places have a free preview – 30 pages, I think.  

ME: Lovely!  Thanks for stopping by Alica!

ALICA: Thanks for having me, Myndi.  I’ve had a great time.

ROW80 Check-In #5…I think.

Has it really been five weeks??  Goodness…

This week was…um…

Well, see for yourself.

Writing?  Nope.  Didn’t do it.  Not a single word on the manuscript.  I did get lots of blogging done – I’m trying to stockpile for when the baby comes, but the WIP suffered.

Exercising?  Nope.  With the exception of Ginger Calem’s bathroom oriented #writersbutt activities (sounds scarier than it is), I didn’t do jack.

Healthy brekkie?  Yep.  But that has more to do with the fact that all the brekkie food in our cupboards is now healthy than actual resolve on my part.  Thank goodness I planned ahead on that one.

Something for myself?  Nope.  Didn’t make the time.  I had great intentions, just didn’t follow through.

I could blame it on bunches of stuff – Birthday Week, pregnancy, gorgeous non-winter-like weather…but really, when it came down to it, I just didn’t wanna.  So I didn’t.  Trying to wrap that up into something prettier than what it is just seems like a waste of time.

Thankfully, every week is a chance to start fresh, right?  :)

Lots of love to you, ROW80-ers!  Hope this past week was full of successes for each and every one of you!

Log-Lines from the Edge of Ridiculousness

Last week I braved my fears and threw my attempt at a log-line for my book out to the masses for feedback.  And what feedback I got!  Such encouraging, kind, constructive words from so many of you…I’m still chewing through it all, but I’m feeling better about the concept.

We really Are Not Alone…and it rocks.  *big grins*

One suggestion that I found really helpful was to compare the book to popular movies or books that already exist.  While the hubster and I were discussing this idea, the conversation drifted, as it generally does, into the ridiculous.  Soon we weren’t talking about my book at all, but saying things like:

Beverly Hillbillies meets The Breakfast Club

Five nouveau riche hillbilly highschoolers move to Beverly Hills and find themselves in detention after refusing to conform to privileged private school rules.

or

Uncle Buck meets Ghost Busters

Unemployed bachelor and all-around slob, Buck babysits his brother’s rebellious – and ghostly – teenage daughter and her cute – and slimy – younger brother and sister.

We spent a decent amount of time cracking up at our new game and very, very clever book premises.  (To be fair, the hubster was home sick that day, jacked up on cold medicine…and I’m all a muss with preggo hormones…so things probably sounded far funnier to us than they will to any of you.)

As we were cackling and patting ourselves on the back for our wit and humor, it dawned on me how this could easily turn into hours and hours of fun – or, at the very least, a blog post.  :)

So here are some log-lines for unwritten books based on the idea of marrying popular movies/books/tv shows together.

300 meets 18 Again

King Leonidas – trapped in the body of his swinging grandfather – must lead a force of 300 men to fight the Persians while maintaing his bad-ass reputation, while his grandfather, trapped in King Leonidas’ much younger body, decides to re-live his youth.

How to Train Your Dragon meets Pride and Prejudice

Sparks fly when spirited but clumsy Elisabeth Bennet meets single, rich, and powerful dragon-slaying Viking Mr. Darcy.

Training Day meets Top Dog

On his first day on the job as a narcotics officer, a rookie cop works with a rogue detective who wasn’t what he expected: a dog.

Footloose meets Diehard

A city boy moves to small-town USA where he gives a local terrorist operative a dose of their own medicine through the medium of rock and roll and dancing.

Seabiscuit meets Boondock Saints

An undersized depression-era racehorse sets out to rid Boston of evil.

Elf meets Dirty Harry

After inadvertently wreaking havoc on the elf community due to his ungainly size and love of his gun, a man raised as an elf in the North Pole is sent to San Francisco to track down a serial killer.

UHF meets Jersey Shore

A local public TV station gets a new owner – a 20-something New Jersey-ite with orange skin, sky-high bouffant, and a vapid lifestyle.  Against all odds, the station becomes a big hit, with all sorts of gags and wacky humor from her friends.

Alright, that’s plenty from me – I want to hear what you’ve got!  What are some story combinations so ridiculous that they have you laughing out loud?

Hives

I’m breaking out in hives.

For the past nearly two months, I’ve been sweating in solitary confinement over writing a log-line for my book.  The solitary confinement has been self imposed because, per my usual ridiculousness, I hate the idea of trying something, sucking at it, and then looking stupid in front of all you lovely people.

But sometimes (okay, really, probably all the time), a girl needs feedback.

Some basics first, for those of you reading my blog who aren’t writers – a log-line is a single sentence that tells what a book or story is about.  Kristen Lamb has a frigging fabulous post on writing log-lines – one I’m a little embarrassed to admit I can pretty much recite verbatim.  (That’s embarrassing because I still have this sneaky suspicion that I’m failing miserably in my log-line writing attempt.  Hence this post.)

When I first began writing three years ago, I was clueless.  Everything about my start in writing was @$$ backwards.  My pants were in charge and I was flying by the seat of ‘em.  All I knew about the story I was writing was that I was trying to get my character to a specific destination.  The why’s for getting there weren’t important to me when I began.  *cringe*

Several months after I started writing, I somehow realized (among a plethora of other smack-myself-in-the-forehead-I’m-going-to-be-lucky-if-this-thing-is-salvageable epiphanies) that I needed to figure out where the story was going.  So I stopped and began my first feeble attempt at plotting.  At that point, the book became three books.  After the drafts of those three books were finished, I realized that the story hadn’t tied up as neatly as I would have liked, and so a fourth was born.  Now, three years later, I’ve got four books drafted, all tightly knotted together, the first book nearly polished enough for beta-readers, and I’m trying to figure out how to go about this log-line crap.  Do I write one log-line for each book?  Or do I write one for all four?

(And let it be known to the writing-deities of the universe that I am well aware of how @$$ backwards it is to work on the log-line after the story is written.  I see my folly now.  It will not be repeated when I start a new book, I swears…)

I’ve been working on one for all four, partly because I’m being lazy (shut up, I know – writer’s aren’t supposed to be lazy.  I’m playing my third trimester card here), and partly because while each book definitely has its own story to tell, in the end, all four books come together as a very solid whole.

But the problem with writing one log-line for a four-part series is that I’ve ended up with what I’m sure is the world’s longest run-on sentence.  And also, I’m not sure if a log-line for the whole series is the best way to represent a single book.  I don’t know; maybe I need to do both – one log-line for each individual book, and one for the series as a whole.

Oh, lordy.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve got so far – one log-line for the entire series.  Have a looky:

Abandoned in the woods as an infant, and brought up in a family that despised her, a teenage girl places her trust in an other-worldly stranger hoping to discover what she really is without being caught by either of the two men who claim to be her father: one, who wants to kill her for what she’s not; the other, who’s intent on using her as a weapon because of what she is.

Thoughts?  Does it catch you?  Does it make you want to read?  Or does it drone on and on to the tune of more YA white noise?  Perhaps I ought to throw a vampire in there for good measure (*giggle, snort*)…

I would heart, heart, HEART your feedback, lovelies – from all of you, writers or no.

ROW80 Check-In: Week 3

First of all, let me say to all you who stopped by and left the sweetest, most encouraging words last week, THANK YOU.  I’ve gone back and re-read all your encouragement several times throughout the week – it’s meant so much to me.  If I could squeeze each and every one of you, I would.  Thanks, so much, from the bottom of my heart.

Last week’s check-in turned out to be the start of a week-long pit-stop for me.

With some carefully-worded guidance from my sweet, enduring husband (who knows full-well just how ugly my pregnancy listening filter can make any words, no matter how kind), I decided to all but cut myself off from the web, and focus on the most pressing issue at hand: our homeschool curriculum.

Thankfully, after two months of tears, tripping down the wrong paths, pulling out our hair, etc., I think we’ve finally got it figured out.  The week has been spent diving into this new curriculum, and I’m seeing all the signs that we’ve found one that works: the boys are happy and willing to do their work, sweetZ’s tickled to have her mommy-time back, and I’ve got a couple spare hours a day I can devote to writing/blogging/WANA-ing.  This coming week will really be the true test for all that, since I didn’t write a sentence – blogging or otherwise – last week.  Instead, I snuggled with my girl, napped when I was tired, and had fun helping my boys along.  I’ll add back in my writing responsibilities this week, and see how it goes.

Even though last week was less-than-stellar, goal wise (with the exception of the wholesome brekkie thing, and the reading thing), I’m satisfied.  Some problems, if you don’t stop everything to fix them, will grow into something wholly crippling.  This was one of those problems.  Any homeschooling parent lives with a constant nagging shadow following them around – the fear of somehow failing their kids in a way that will cripple their chances at becoming a successful adult.  It’s a powerful fear, one that will bring me to my knees faster than just about anything.  Last week was one of those weeks, but I’m finally feeling that burden beginning to lift.  Phew.

Hoping your week went well, sweet friendlies!  Sorry I’ve not been to any of your blogs over the past week, but I’ll get back into the swing of blog reading in the coming days.  Much love to you all!

ROW80: Check in, Week 01

This week has gone well.  Very well.

All too well.

*cue low, creepy music*  *eyes dart to and fro suspiciously*  *paranoia perches itself on shoulder, hisses softly in my ear*

Seriously, I couldn’t be happier about how this week went, and I’m feeling upbeat and optimistic about the coming one.  In terms of my goals, here’s what I’m looking at:

*30 minutes of prepped writing a day*  This went fabulously well.  I’m finding that those thirty minutes are serving to be the ‘test mile’ Kait Nolan blogged about last week – most days I stretched those thirty minutes into an hour or more of dedicated writing time because once I got into the groove, I just kept going as long as my responsibilities would allow.  It was fabulous.  I met this goal (or exceeded it) every day this week.  The temptation is there to revamp this goal, and make the goal time something longer, but I’m going to hold off for a couple of weeks to make sure I can keep up this pace.  Prepping is really easy right now – I’m in editing mode on my WIP, so there’s really no planning or research involved at this stage.  I’m really, really hopeful I’ll be ready to have some beta-readers look at this draft before offspring #4 shows up.  We shall see!

*Baby steps toward moving every day*  This has also gone well – I’ve nailed those initial 5 minutes, plus some, every single day – except one.  Friday was brutal…the night before Shafer #4 had her own little all-night rave in my belly – so much so that it woke the hubster up.  There was no sleeping for me Friday night, so I made up for it during the day.  Which meant exercise went out the window.  The cool thing about those 5 minutes is that they’re like a little ‘test mile’, too.  Once I get moving, it feels great, and I want to keep going.  I’m also taking part in Ginger Calem’s #writersbutt – I highly recommend you check it out!  Ginger’s fab, and fun, and really knows her stuff…even if she has us doing potty squats.  Message her on Twitter to find out what that is.

*Doing something good for myself once a week*  This one is the hardest of them all – it’s easy to get caught up in mommy-mode and leave myself (or any little luxuries for myself) in the dust.  But I’m determined!  This week I think I did great – I treated myself to new much-needed bedding (oh my goodness, our old comforter was bona-fide scary).  I felt so guilty walking out of the store with giant bundles of linens under my arms, but now that it’s home, and on the bed, and oh-so-pretty, I’m good with it.

*Read, every day*  And I have!  It’s always in small chunks – these days it’s pretty hard to find the time to curl up and utterly lose myself in words, but I’ve managed to scrimp a few minutes here and there together every day.  I’m hopeful that in the next few weeks I’ll feel comfortable enough to set an actual time target for this goal!

So, yeah.  Feeling pretty good about it right now.  Thanks for stopping by, ROW80 lovelies!  Hope your week was a success as well!

In the Nick of Time…New Year’s Resolutions Unveiled

I’ve struggled whether or not to publicly declare my New Year’s resolutions.  I’m a giant commitment-phobe, and the thought of saying “Hey, look at what I’m gonna do!” to anybody other than my son’s stuffed whale (the only person I tell all my secrets, hopes, and dreams to), has me breaking out in a cold sweat.  Because if anybody besides me or Whale knows my intentions for the next year, I might actually have to follow through on them, or face the embarrassment of failure.

Blech.  Forget it.  I’m ending this post now, right now.  *runs from the room screaming* *trips on something in the hallway* (Whale is on the floor, staring up at me with his dark, soulful eyes) *sighs heavily, picks up Whale, and shuffles back to the computer*

Okay, I’m back.  So.  New Year’s resolutions.  Here they are:

(1) I’m not going to nit-pick my body.  I’ve been blessed with excellent health, am in the process of making my fourth child…this body has been good to me.  Do I have stretch-marks?  Yep.  Are my arms and tummy flabbier than I would like?  Yep.  Do I sometimes still get a zit or two?  Yep.  But this body has been good to me.  Time for me to return the favor.  I’m going to use it.  I’m going to sweat, and breathe deeply, and sometimes, I’m going to be sore.  But through the process of getting back into shape after this last baby, I’m not going to nit-pick my body.  I’m not going to imagine what it would look like without the battle-wounds childbearing often places on a woman’s body – instead, I’m going to cherish those reminders of the three (soon to be four) most amazing children any parent has ever been blessed with.  Children who exist because I’ve been blessed with a body that could carry and nurture them to term.

(2) I’m going to admit that I’m a writer.  This is a silly little thing that shouldn’t be difficult, but is.  There’s this little irritating voice in the back of my head that says I should wait until I’m published; but this little ‘pastime’ of mine has quickly evolved into something that’s no longer a hobby…no sane person would spend this much time, effort, emotion, tears, determination, and did I say time, on a hobby.  I’m a writer.  It’s what I do.  I may not be the best writer on the planet.  Heck, I may not even be a good writer, yet.  But I’m a writer, working hard every single day to be a little better at it than I was the day before.

(3) I will finish my first book this year.  I will allow myself to put an end to the edits, to the modifications, to the obsessive going over, and over, and over each page, and be done with it.  I will allow myself to finish working on it, and be proud of it.  I will set a deadline, and meet it.  Suck on that, commitment-phobia!

(4) I will play.  With my kids, with the hubster, with my friends.  I will make time to romp, to laugh, to be frivolous, to be loud and live with mirth.  I will not get so caught up in my own life that I forget to enjoy the lives of those I love.

That’s it.  That’s what I’m planning for this year.  The over-achiever in me says the list is too short.  The commitment-phobe says it’s too long.  The tiny little part of my brain that is actually sane says it’s just right.

How about you, dear friendlies?  Do you make New Year’s resolutions?  Or do they scare the shiza out of you?  Or both?